We need to better understand the complexity of contemporary resource governance, argue the authors, to avoid exacerbating inequalities, triggering conflicts over resources, and undermining both climate action and sustainable development. Decision-makers urgently need integrated approaches that can navigate trade-offs while ensuring just and sustainable resource management across scales.

The MEF complex is new and flexible frame for analysis that:

• integrates three critical commodity clusters (minerals, energy, and food) that form the backbone of the global economy and are increasingly interdependent
• incorporates mediating factors (water, land, and labour) that govern local resource interactions and determine the sustainability of extraction and production
• accounts for higher-order factors – such as global governance, trade, supply chains, geopolitics, and climate change – that connect local extraction to global systems and shape who benefits from resources and who bears extraction costs
• provides decision-makers with essential tools to navigate resource challenges in an era of accelerating change
• supports natural resource governance that is more equitable, resilient and sustainable, and that can better balance local needs with global demands.

The MEF complex reveals critical power asymmetries in resource flows. To satisfy increasing demand, extraction predominantly occurs in the resource-rich low-income countries, while benefits from consumption and processing concentrate in wealthy countries and emerging economies. For instance, 60% of cobalt mining occurs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, yet the benefits of the value-chain primarily go to high-income countries and emerging economies. These patterns perpetuate unequal exchange and exacerbate vulnerabilities, and are likely to be exacerbated by intensifying climate impacts and rising geopolitical tensions between major powers like the US and China.

The MEF complex enables more comprehensive analysis of cross-scale dynamics, informing governance approaches that can address both local impacts and global effects. It highlights how current fragmented governance systems, from trade regimes to climate negotiations, operate in silos that fail to address interconnected challenges coherently. Increasingly complex global supply chains transmit risks across borders: climate impacts at extraction sites can cascade through entire economic systems, heightening risks and undermining efforts to tackle climate impacts and pressing social and environmental issues.

The paper argues that further research and policy development is required to put insights from the MEF complex into practice. To that end, the authors propose a forward-looking research and policy agenda that aims to:

• improve data availability and transparency across supply chains, particularly for critical minerals, energy sources, and food production systems
• clarify risk ownership and developing appropriate policy responses that distribute responsibility equitably across the value chain
• map the fragmented global governance landscape to identify gaps and opportunities for more coherent resource management
• incorporate diverse voices, especially from affected communities and the global south, to reduce global inequalities and ensure just resource governance.